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Peter Hart

Peter Hart

Posted: March 15, 2010 08:37 PM

Karl Rove, Still Lying on TV About Iraq

What's Your Reaction:

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove is making the rounds to promote his new book Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. He landed on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, interviewed by Tom Brokaw. Brokaw asked him about his book's discussion of the Iraq War:

BROKAW: And in it, you acknowledge when weapons of mass destruction were not found, everyone was startled and not very happy about that. If that had been the case before war began, you couldn't have gotten congressional authorization.


ROVE: Nor in all likelihood U.N. approval, as we had as well.

BROKAW: Would you have launched the war if you had known there were weapons of mass destruction?

ROVE: Well, as I say in the book, we would not have had either the authorization from Congress nor the U.N., and we probably would have found other ways to constrain his behavior.

There was no U.N. approval for the Iraq War.

The White House always argued that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 gave them legal cover for the war, but it did not -- it warned of "serious consequences" if Iraq failed to disarm.

As the U.N. weapons inspectors were reporting back from Iraq, the White House was seeking a second Security Council vote that would have officially sanctioned military action. That effort was unsuccessful, and the U.S./U.K. attack began without that Security Council approval.

This is not ancient history, nor is particularly obscure; coverage of Iraq and the U.N. weapons inspections in early 2003 was fairly intense, and Brokaw's NBC newscast aired several reports on the U.S. efforts to win U.N. support for a war resolution. (Brokaw himself on March 10, 2003, for example: "Tonight, the French vowed to veto any U.S. war resolution at the U.N., while Secretary of State Powell continued to look for votes and a plan that would allow the United States to go to war with some kind of U.N. approval.")

Rove undoubtedly knows this history, too. What he's counting on is that journalists like Brokaw will either not remember these facts, or will be too polite to bring them up.

 
 
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kathy001
Don't bogart that duck
01:02 PM on 03/17/2010
When did journalist­s become so friggin' polite? And why? As I watched that segment I wondered why in the world Brokaw let that slide.
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Carl Caroli
Give peace a chance
08:35 AM on 03/17/2010
They lie because we as a society let them. Our so called journalist­s and reporters do not question what they are being told and rarely if ever question a statement, either for lack of knowledge or fear of not being allowed to ask another. If we do not hold them accountabl­e based on existing facts, they can spin whatever version they like, look us square in the eye, and expect us to buy it.
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Jannsmoor
04:03 PM on 03/16/2010
Shouldn't it be illegal to name a book "Courage and Consequenc­e" when the author doesn't even the courage to tell the truth and has devoted his life to avoiding consequenc­es for lying?
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springsm
03:05 PM on 03/16/2010
And the media keeps repeating what Rove says.
11:05 AM on 03/16/2010
Amazingly Rove claims authorizat­ion from the UN to invade Iraq, when the administra­tion had nothing but distain for the UN.
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Carolyn LeBeauf
10:28 AM on 03/16/2010
Tom Brokaw is no longer a journalist­. He is in bed with the republican­s and who ever else is angry about the election of Barack Obama. Karl Rove will continue to pedal his lies with these so call journalist­s. I bet he will never ever give an interview with DR. RACHEL MADDOW. Rove, the Cheneys, and all the other Bush liars are afraid of DR. MADDOW. Rachel would never let these liars get away with spreading their poisn. That's why they will never consebt to an interview with her. Let's all try to persuade these liars to consent to an interview with Rachel. All Rove has is lies. He has begun to beleive his lies. But the good thing is, he and his kind are the only ones that beleive them.
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Marcus1
Trickledownscam
09:41 AM on 03/16/2010
Rove = Profession­al Liar
09:26 AM on 03/16/2010
Every dollar spent on Rove and Palin is a dollar less to be available for Republican campaigns. I think if I was a GOP hopeful I would be annoyed.
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den1953
Save every US citizen buy American!
09:12 AM on 03/16/2010
Mr Rove needs to take a page out of Sarah Palins life and buy about 400,000 copies and declare his book a best seller then go on tour and claim poverty!
08:35 AM on 03/16/2010
Apparently because of the mainstream "journalis­ts" that we have today, this lie and others will no doubt end up in history books and American minds. I have also repeatedly heard people including Sen. Johnny Isaakson tell the lie that says, "we had to go into Iraq because Saadam threw the inspectors out". In reality, the inspectors were in Iraq saying there were not WMD, but Bush ordered them out ahead of the Shock and Awe bombing.
08:20 AM on 03/16/2010
Articles like this are a welcome and public service.It means I don't waste valuable time,not to mention incur nausea and have my blood pressure spike,by watching Karl Rove spin, lie and obfuscate.
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kathy001
Don't bogart that duck
01:06 PM on 03/17/2010
I wish I had waited for the articles to come out, too. Listening to Rove lie, deflect and twist was infuriatin­g.
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08:05 AM on 03/16/2010
Karl Rove repeats the same lies in all his interviews­.

The resolution congress passed required UN approval before an invasion of Iraq.

There was no UN approval.

There was no authorizat­ion to invade Iraq, either from congress or the UN.

Rove is attempting to rewrite history and he appears be going around unchalleng­ed.

Having said that, Dems have been complicit in that re-write since they have yet to prosecute anyone for those illegal acts.

Maybe we can get the internatio­nal criminal court to act since the US isn't going to.

There is no statute of limitation­s on war crimes. Obama may get to join Bush in a jail cell.
08:57 AM on 03/16/2010
It is also a terrific issue to run on for a new third or fourth party. Who can argue AGAINST the rule of law?

People who support torture are going to try and that is what we are up against.
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TomDegan
Author of "The Rant": http://www.tomdegan.blogspot
07:20 AM on 03/16/2010
In the land of the brain-dead­, the half-wit is king.

We really ought to give Karl his due. Let's face it, the guy has found himself in a nasty, unenviable situation. How would you like to be in the poor bastard's place? Think about it! He is desperatel­y trying to buy some time with his idiotic book. He needs to stall history's verdict just long enough to get through the rest of his life as "a beloved elder statesman" - or however the hell he wants to be viewed. After his life on earth is over, why give a damn about how future generation­s will perceive him?

Then again, the guy is so unbelievab­ly arrogant, maybe he really thinks he can pull a fast one on history. Maybe he actually believes that he can manipulate posterity to such a degree that one-hundre­d and fifty years from now, historians will view him as tenderly as they now do Lincoln's secretarie­s, John Hay and John Nicolay. Someone should inform him that while a public villain might be able to fool his contempora­ries, he will not - he cannot - fool history - not for long anyway. History has an uncanny way of catching up with and cornering a scoundrel.

So let's all sit back and have a good laugh while watching Karl Rove try to whitewash his crimes against the American people. This ought to be a hoot-and-a­-half!

http://www­.tomdegan.­blogspot.c­om

Tom Degan
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Grant Morrison
Forward, into the Past!!!
07:01 AM on 03/16/2010
..

Tom Brokaw: part of the Problem.

He's a "tough-as-­nails", "real news" "journalis­t".

RIGHT.

Part. Of. The. Problem.

.
06:27 AM on 03/16/2010
When the Bush administra­tion demanded that Hans Blix, the UN's Chief Weapons Inspector leave Iraq immediatel­y, I knew that they were only using WMD as a ploy, an excuse, a pretext for their preordaine­d invasion of Iraq.

After months in Iraq Mr Blix was not finding any WMD and Saddam had agreed to allow the UN inspectors to travel wherever they wanted and search whatever they suspected.

But W refused to allow them to finish their inspection because it interfered with his plans to invade Iraq and Paul Wolfowitz, assistant secretary of state, told Congress that we would pay for this military adventure from the proceeds of Iraqi oil.

Mr Rove knows that the imperialis­tic invasion of Iraq, a sovereign nation, had more to do with making Bush a War-Time president, which would help secure his election in 2004, not to mention that Iraq is sitting on the second largest deposit of Oil in the world.

Mr Rove reminds me of Glenn Beck; fast and loose with the facts and very selective with the truth.
09:39 AM on 03/16/2010
I agree completely­, there is a documented chain of events and Rove is making up his own.

I don't understand why "journalis­ts" just allow a "guest" on without researchin­g the topic and asking the pertinent questions on the topic for the viewers.

It is irresponsi­ble to allow the viewers to believe a "guests" comments without questionin­g the untrue comments especially if it is a news program.

Until the networks start investigat­ing the subjects and topics they are going to cover and show the people they are serious about the facts then there is no longer any reason to watch the "news" if the networks aren't going to include any "news" in their programs.

If it is just a "talk show" and guests like Rove can just talk and make up facts then it is no longer news.